With the SMITH supporters behind us, and a SMITH referee, we are prepared to take on CARPENTIER.
[Illustration:_Mother._ "WELL, DARLING, DO YOU REMEMBER _ANYTHING_ THE CLERGYMAN SAID?"
_Barbara._ "YES, MUMMY, I HEARD HIM SAY, 'HALF-PAST-SIX'!"]
(_Modelled on the Opening Chorus of "Atalanta in Calydon."_)
Once in so many calendar spaces _Punch_, appearing on All Fools' Day, Fills with giggles the hours and graces, Causes the hares of March to stay; And the soft sweet hatters along the Strand Remember the dreams of Wonderland, And the chessboard world and the White King's faces, The hamless commons and all the hay.
Come with loud bells and belabouring of bladder, Spirit of Laughter, descend on the town With tumbling of paint-pails from top of the ladder And blowing of tiles from the stockbroker's crown; Bind on thy hosen in motley halves Over the rondure and curve of thy calves; The night may be mad, but the morn shall be madder-- Madder than moonshine and madder than brown.
What shall I say to it, how shall I pipe of it, Weave it what strains of ineffable things? O that my Muse were a Muse with a gripe of it, Engined with petrol and wafted by wings! For the sorrows and sighings of winter are done, And _Punch_ is appearing on April 1, And a savour of daffodils clings to the type of it, And the buttered balm of a crumpet clings.
For the merle and the mavis have joined with the "shover" In drowning the day and the night with their din, And all too soon the unwary lover Is walking about in vestures thin; And the "nuts" are buying their shirts of cotton, And, cast into storage cold, forgotten, From delicate necks they were wont to cover, 'Possum by 'possum, the stoles come in.
And soon is an ending of football rushes, The hold that tackles a travelling heel; And the front of the town with new fire flushes, The paints that follow the paints that peel; And the season comes with its gauds and gold When the amorous plaints once more are told, And the polished hoof of her partner crushes The damsel's shoes in the ballroom reel.
And _The Times_ by day and _The News_ by night, Fleeter of foot than the Fleet Street kid, Shall hurry in motor-cars left and right Saying what Kent and Yorkshire did; And, stout as pillars of marble set, The copper shall capture the suffragette, And screen from peril and heave from sight The maid pursuing, the Minister hid.